Johannesburg - Branden Grace, Erik van Rooyen, Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Dawie van Der Walt will fly the South African flag in the US PGA Tour’s Sony Open at Waialae Country Club, in Hawaii, which starts on Thursday.
Grace and Van Rooyen both played last week at the US PGA Tour’s Tournament of Champions. In an extremely low-scoring event where Aussie Cameron Smith set a new four-round scoring record on the PGA Tour with his victory on 34-under, Van Rooyen finished in a tie for 25th on 16-under.
Grace, meanwhile, finished 33rd on 13-under.
The 33-year-old Grace is currently ranked 68th in the world, and said he will be eager to try his new driver again, after first putting it in the bag last week.
Fun to put the new Rogue driver in play last week! Really pleased with how it performed, and will definitely be using it again this week at Waialae! 💯 @CallawayGolf continues to amaze me with their technology and performance. 🙌![CDATA[]]>🏼 pic.twitter.com/lw732xIq48
— Branden Grace (@BrandenGrace) January 13, 2022
Bezuidenhout, the SA number two at 48th in the world, will be the top-ranked SA player in the field. It will be his first start in 2022, his last tournament being the SA Open Championship in December at Sun City where he finished sixth.
Completing the SA contingent in the field, will be Van Der Walt. Currently ranked 426th in the world, Van der Walt has not made a cut in his last four events on the PGA Tour since a tie for 22nd at the Fortinet Championship in September.
Missing this week’s event will be SA number three Garrick Higgo after finishing 25th last week at the Tournament of Champions alongside Van Rooyen.
Tee times (SA time):
Branden Grace - 19:50
Erik van Rooyen - 20:20pm
Dawie van Der Walt 21:00
Christiaan Bezuidenhout - 00:00